Page 3 of Lessons in Heartbreak

The facial expression she made was half smile, half grimace, because she knew it was true. I didn’t just have walls up—I was wrapped inbarbed wire, encased in a ten-foot block of concrete, surrounded by a deep moat teeming with rabid sharks.

And it was lonely.

I didn’t want to be there anymore, but the longer I sat, the scarier all those barriers got. Bigger and bigger in my mind.

Lauren started cautiously. “Sometimes we need to be alone in order to loosen up a little. Maybe that would help you, even if you don’t use that.”

Thatbeing the box, still doing pulsing vibrations on my living room floor.

“I don’t know,” I said skeptically. “I don’t even know what I’d be able to think about to distract me from all the ... moving parts.”

God, I sounded pathetic, didn’t I?

What thirty-year-old woman was afraid of a sex toy?

Lauren’s eyes sparkled as she laughed. “What about when you were younger?” she asked. “Did you ever have any harmless crushes or teenage sweethearts?”

My answering laugh was wry, and I rubbed at my forehead. Two faces instantly popped into my head. Two versions of the same face, really.

“There was this family who lived behind us for years.” I twisted my fingers into the fringe of the throw pillow resting against my thigh. “They had twin boys. We didn’t go to the same school, and they were a couple years older than me, but I always climbed this big tree in our backyard and watched them. They were constantly practicing football or soccer or baseball. They were good ateverything.”

She smiled. “Did they know you were there?”

“Oh yeah. The younger one, Griffin—or younger by a couple minutes, I guess—he was always teasing me. He’d climb up into the tree and snatch my book away, trying to coax me down. He was such a pest.” I shook my head. “The other one—he was more serious. Neverteased me the way his brother did. But when he smiled ...” I laid a hand on my stomach. “I felt it right here.”

“You didn’t feel it when the younger brother smiled?”

“I was too busy being annoyed,” I answered dryly. “But yeah, I felt it watching him too. They were just ... everything I wasn’t. Strong and fast and outgoing, and everyone loved them. We moved away when I was fifteen, so it’s not like anything happened, but sometimes I think about how I felt sitting in that tree, and I get sad that I didn’t just do something about it.”

“You can do something about it now.”

“Can I? I just want ...” My eyes burned, and ruthlessly, I willed the buildup of tears away. That was within my power, within my control. “I’m sick of not knowing what any of it feels like, Lauren. When I’ve tried ...” The way my voice trailed off really pissed me off.

Wary and unsure. Quiet.

It was timid.

Ugh. Screw that. I was so sick of feeling that way.

And yet, despite the tumultuous reaction, I couldn’t stop it, no matter how badly I wanted to.

But her face was soft with sympathy, as was her voice when she spoke. “I know, sweetie.”

The difference in our ages was just shy of a decade, but that nickname, only brought out when she was feeling particularly motherly, tested my ability to hold back those tears.

My dog, Bruiser, wandered down the hallway—after he’d likely slept sprawled on top of my bed—drawn by the noise from the box.

Bzzz. Bzzzzzzz.

His head tilted as he approached, his butt sticking up in the air as he crouched down in a playful pose to inspect the package.

“I swear, if he pulls that out and asks me to play fetch with it ...,” I said in a warning tone.

Lauren reached over to grab the box, deftly pressing a button to stop the vibrating, and I exhaled a short laugh. “Thank you.”

Determination blazed in her eyes. “You need a professional. You need someone who can help you build your confidence and show you that you have the ability to let someone in again.” This time, she was the one who tapped a hand to my chest, but she did it gently. “You have it all right here.”

Maybe it was because I’d been an avid reader my entire life, but trying to get a mental picture of what a word meant helped conceptualize the way it was affecting me—for good or for bad.

---